Closing Week

Here we are in our final week.  Wow!  We enjoyed playing with favorite things and working in our yearbooks this week.

Last Day Pictures - One of the kiddos asked if we were going to do "last day of preschool" pictures like we did "first day of preschool" pictures.  Great idea!

Yearbooks - The kiddos were so excited to get their books this morning.  They eagerly "signed" each others books (by drawing pictures).

I like to make each kiddo (and myself) a yearbook with pictures of them self (beginning and end of the school year) and their classmates, class pictures...  I use the quick Japanese Stab Binding technique to create the books.

Science - Glow Sticks -  We were curious to see if a glow stick would be brighter in cold water or hot water.  We quickly discovered that a glow stick glows much brighter in warm water.  The kiddos liked switching the sticks back and forth between the cups.  The change occurred pretty quickly.  It was cool to see.

I saw this idea on this blog:  here.

Backyard - Parachute - We bounced balls off and then tried to keep them on, pretty fun!



Ms. Sara's Smart Cookies - They certainly are!  I was telling them this and a kiddo piped up and said:  "Yeah!  Cause I know dogs have 4 legs!"  Yep, they do!

I love these cookie necklaces!  The kiddos did too!  They were fairly quick to make and lots more fun than a certificate.  A circle of cardboard, with "frosting" and sprinkles (modge podge).

 

End of Year Gifts - I always like to send the kiddos out the door with a bit of love.   I find stuff at the Dollar Store mostly, but also all year long in the clearance bins.  Often I find my best stuff at the end of summer and just save it all school year long.

This year our Dollar Store had fans during Mother's day.  These were an instant hit with the kiddos in the dress up bin.  So I went right back to the store to snatch up enough for their gift bags.  The little bags I found 2 for $1 at Target.

 I've always got to give them a book!  Left:  A new find this spring and a quick classroom favorite.  Right:  This is my favorite book for my kiddos who are going off to Kindergarten.

The Great Outdoors

Holy cow!  How are we nearly done with our preschool year already!  - As is tradition, the second to last week is camping time in the great outdoors at the preschool!  ...


Journal Time - I made a bit of silliness for our journals this week:  marshmallow roasting, a tent with flaps and 

Free Play - They loved the tent. 

Toasting Marshmallows - Just roasting some marshmallows...


Father's Day - We worked on our gift for our dads.  They match our Mother's day gifts, so families will have a matching set.

Father's Day Craft - Toddlers - We love our dads loads and loads!  The kiddos glued hearts in their pick-up trucks.  Happy early father's day!

I was hoping the have the kiddos draw themselves and their dad in the window of the truck, but today we were lucky just to get the hearts glued on.  Ha.

S'more Making - Back by yummy request.  I just stuck them in the oven under the broiler for a few minutes.

Getting Ready - Before we head out on our nature walk, we need to do a few things.  Decorate our nature journals and sharpen our pencils. Pack our snack and try out our binoculars.  Ok!  We're all ready to go!

These kiddos LOVE to sharpen pencils.  They were super excited to pick out a special pencil to take on our walk with us and then home.

Nature Walk - We looked at the different plants and flowers.  We noticed colors, and shapes and bugs and smells ....

 

 

The Park! - 

Scrubbing - We decided to clean off our mud table today.  There is something so great about a warm soapy bucket of water.  The kiddos enjoyed washing away the mud.  And let's be honest, a clean table is much more fun to put mud on then a dirty one.  Ha.

Circle Time - Reading Guest - One of the kiddos who has been working hard at her reading skills, read to us one of our favorite books.  She did a wonderful job.
 

Learning Station - Feed The Monster - Toddlers

The kiddos loved putting "food" shapes into our blue monster's mouth.  In fact we had some sharing "opportunities" over it.

 

Learning Station - Marshmallow Toss

This station generated much excitement today.  They were happy to toss, but even more eager to munch.  They worked in pairs.  One kiddo tossed (trying to get their marshmallows to land in the "fire") while the other kiddo kept a tally score of what landed "in" and what landed "out".

 

This and That Week

 Welcome to our "this and that" week.  It's a bit of everything.  Since we finished up the alphabet, the kiddos made requests last week for what they would like to do this week.

Science - Mercury Transit - May 9, 2016 - We saw the shadow of Mercury today!  Mr. Adam brought out his sun scope today to watch Mercury pass in front of the sun.  He invited us out to see it too.  Can you see the two dots inside the white glowing circle (the sun) on the second picture?  The left one is  a sun spot and right one is Mercury!  The right one is small and down by the scope.  Super cool!

Play-Doh - I was super excited to find a barber chair Play-Doh set this weekend.  The kiddos enjoyed it today too.

Backyard - We were super excited to play in the backyard in the sunshine today!  We decided we wanted to make potions and mud pies...

Decorating Flower "Pots" - I looked and looked for small terra cotta pots for us to paint, but all I found was big or tiny.  Ha.  So we got cups instead.  The kiddos decorated with sharpies and stickers.  Planting our Flowers - The kiddos enjoyed working with the dirt and choosing the perfect flower. 

Butter Shaking - Each kiddo got a jar of heavy whipping cream to shake and shake and shake and ....  (just fill the jar 1/3 full and have the cream closer to room temperature)  Check out this blog for step by step and good hints: Here!

Teddy "Bear" Picnic - Mmmm...  Fairy bread!  All you need is bread, butter and sprinkles!  Yum!

Book - "This Book Just Ate My Dog" - This is one of our new favorite books, it's super silly.  The title is the plot line.  Today the kiddos created their own versions of the book.  They chose what they wanted their book to eat and then drew all the illustrations for it.

Learning Station - Magnetic Words

The kiddos chose 5 words to build, then they searched through the bucket of letters to create each word.  They did great and there was a lot of great reading going on.
This magnetic board is from IKEA, love it.

Learning Station - Counting Bears

We used dominoes and bears to practice subtraction.  (Kiddo:  "You mean take away?" - Yep!)  The kiddos picked out a domino, found the largest number and counted out that many bears.  Then they subtracted (or took away) the smaller number of bears.  

 The youngsters did addition and the toddlers sorted the bears by color.

Learning Station - Play Dough Names

The kiddos created their name with the use of play dough.